Landing a plane at 240km/h (140mph) is a serious business and landing it on a clean, non-slippery runway is crucial. But the landing in itself makes the surface slippery by leaving a trail of burning rubber from the tires.

In a busy airport this quickly produces up to a 1cm slippery rubber surface on a runway. This rubber needs to come off to ensure safety. But how do you remove rubber that has been burned into asphalt or concrete?

Nilfisk-Advance Technologies has the answer and is now releasing the Cyclone 4006 airport maintenance machine to the global market. The Cyclone 4006 is designed specifically for airport runway rubber and can also be used for paint line removal when paint lines needs to be removed or renovated.

“The Cyclone 4006 is the most dramatic advancement in the history of Airport Runway Maintenance,” says Jørgen Jensen, president and CEO of Nilfisk-Advance Group. “It’s a technological breakthrough cleaning the runway in one pass leaving a clean and dry runway. And this is even done without any hazardous chemicals – simply by the use of wind and leaving no discharge to the environment.”

A category-four cyclone storm

The heart of Cyclone is the multi-patented cleaning head with built-in turbine fins. These turbine fins produce airflows in excess of 135mph.

The combination of this air movement, mixed with the removed debris, has an effect of a category-four cyclone storm moving across the surface, which effectively cleans the surface without damage.

“Designed specifically for airport applications, the Cyclone 4006 is the most effective runway maintenance system made in the world today,” says Richard Kotch, general manager of Nilfisk-Advance Technologies. “There is no comparison. We have great expectations to this new technology and even though it is made for airport maintenance, I am sure that it will soon be used by road construction and road maintenance companies where very efficient hard surface cleaning is needed.”

Backed by the strength of the 100-year-old Nilfisk-Advance Group, the Cyclone 4006 is now available for worldwide sales and distribution.